ESSAY: VENEZUELA IN WESTERN PROPAGANDA

August 03, 2017 THE WEST IS NOT EVIL, JUST MISLED

Since I discovered Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey a couple of years ago, every word he writes has hit a resonant cord in me. My horror & disgust at the “New World Order” has gone beyond the puerile Western governments of our day to the real sinister force of modern times: the brazen and holistic propaganda enterprise of Western media. Once the USA brands a country’s leader an enemy (be he Aideed, Milosevic, Saddam, Khaddafi, Assa’ad, or Maduro, etc.), our media begin a relentless chorus to demonize that leader, smothering all truth with an avalanche of propaganda. George Orwell’s “1984” was said to be a parody of communism; but it is now a prophecy of Western hypocrisy.

Tim is right: the West has a serious (perhaps lethal) problem with democracy: unfortunately, it is being redefined NOW as a sinister mantra that means only “government that is approved by the USA.” I remember when Margaret Thatcher went to war against Argentina over the Falklands/Malvinas. The islanders were dragooned to the polls in the middle of a deadly war and instructed to vote in favor of staying British. Western media immediately hailed that act as “Self-Determination.” But recently the Crimea (which has been historically a part of Russia) voted unanimously to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia, and all the attack dogs of Western media denounced that exercise as “sham election” and a land grab by Russia.

No, Tim, my expressive friend, the West is not “evil”: I don’t believe in fairies, good or bad. The West is being perverted once again by imperialistic governments and tendencies, this time aided by bad media “presstitutes.”

It is scary because governments may come and go, while the modern media is run by an invisible conglomerate that exists to sow discord everywhere for financial gain. The media in non-Western countries are always introduced with the prefix “government-controlled” (so as to elicit our disdain for media that FOLLOWS the diktat of a government. But our nightmare is not that the media can toe a government’s line; rather it is that the media now CONTROLS some powerful governments!

Whenever the topic of “terrorism” comes up, for instance, I’m amazed at the number of Americans who insist, “Terrorists hate us because we are the richest and happiest people on earth.” I quickly tell them the US standard of living is not higher than that in Scandinavia; and our quality of life is much poorer than that of Scandinavians (when insecurity and societal strife are factored in); and yet, I point out, “terrorists” are not throwing grenades at the really prosperous and handsome Scandinavians. No, they target NATO countries because in our rapacity we have been bombing and invading countless nations on earth every since I can remember—just to subjugate them and despoil their resources. And when they resist our depredation, we call them “evil.”

No, those misguided Americans who see the USA as a target of an envious horde are not evil: they are just parodying the twaddle that is spread by Western media. Besides, only a hate-scorched mind like Ronald Reagan’s could conceive of a collection of millions of soviet people as an “evil empire.” George Orwell must be turning in his grave as the USA becomes, to use the title of a 1965 movie, A SHIP OF FOOLS. Communism died because it was unwieldy; now democracy seems set to die of hate and hypocrisy in the hands of those who fancy themselves the new master race—the “exceptional” people.

Lyn Thomas-Ogbuji

ESSAY: VENEZUELA IN WESTERN PROPAGANDA was last modified: August 3rd, 2017 by Lyn Thomas-Ogbuji